Wednesday, September 09, 2009

You probably -- like most people -- think your intelligence is above average, that you're a better-than-average driver, and that your children are the rockingest. Part of your disagreement about this with other people (that is, those who think you're a reckless idiot with rotten kids) may be your different standards. The home improvement contractor and the absent-minded professor don't agree about what "intelligence" is. People who use and don't use turn signals differ about the importance of turn signals. We come to esteem the domains of our children's success. I wouldn't -- far from it! -- deny that there's considerable illusion and self-deception in all this, but to some extent it can be perfectly rational. People can legitimately disagree in their standards of intelligence, skillful driving, and child behavior, and it shouldn't be surprising if those legitimate differences lead them to shape themselves (and their children) to reflect their standards. We could all perfectly rationally believe we are above average.

It seems to me that this applies especially to philosophy, the one academic field where virtually everything is contentious (even, I'll admit, this very statement). Philosophers can perfectly rationally disagree, and disagree radically, in their views of at least:

* what counts as an important topic,* what is a good method to address a particular topic,* the truth of almost any philosophical conclusion,* the quality of almost any philosophical argument.

Those of them with any sense will then choose, in their own research, to focus on the most important topics, using the best approaches and arguments, wisely defending the truth. By their own standards -- and quite reasonably so -- their work will be the best stuff out there, with the exception probably of a few acknowledged heroes after whom they mold themselves.

Almost inevitably then, almost everyone who does philosophical research will feel that their work is undervalued and underappreciated by the rest of the community (who for their part very reasonably have different standards). Aggravating this will be the usual self-serving biases and positive self-illusions of non-depressed people, and various cognitive and situational facts somewhere between self-deceptive and rational. To exemplify the last point: One's own work is more salient and better remembered than that of others, and so more noticeably missing from reference lists. Positive feedback is more likely to be conveyed than negative feedback, especially as one's power and prestige increase. Like-minded philosophers tend to aggregate in departments, in conferences, in journals, in reference lists -- making those with the highest opinion of you and the most similar values the ones you are most likely to interact with.

Odds are, you're about an order of magnitude worse a philosopher than you think you are. Or, put differently: Sure, you're well above average, by your own reasonable standards, but so is everybody.

Update Sept. 10: Let me add that I think the dynamics for students are a bit different, with a substantial proportion suffering from underconfidence. Or actually, I think more commonly among top students (including in my own case when I was a student), there's a weird, irrational blend of underconfidence and inflated arrogance.

Anonymous 'Anonymous' raises an interesting point. I have always wondered why someone would want to be good 'at philosophy', and I have personally tended to like philosophers who did not remind me of philosophers (e.g. the nice flow of Plantinga's writing, the scientific roots of Dennett, the artless clarity of Schwitzgebel, the scientific humility of a new wave of X-phi theorists, although crossing my fingers, the interdisciplinary approach of the metaphor/narrative guys and gals, and the exquisite mentorship and instruction I have found from philosophers without much going for them on the research side). This reminds me of one, somewhat successful, analytic philosopher who took pride in being a 'professional philosopher' even while at that moment taking the last ideological stand for right up the middle Cartesian dualism, the belief in propositions, and internalist epistemic justification. It seems that truth seeking or else a moral form of skepticism would be the goal; in so far as philosophy helps one pursue this goal then it is alright. In so far as it gives a sense of accomplishment distinct from this goal, then it seems to me so much the worse. But there I have gone and done it again: exhibiting the illusory, inflated view of my own thoughts and supposing someone else might find them of value. As I read back over this paragraph, I think to myself: what a bunch of half baked tripe! Only the demotic internet would allow for such a vain show. I will get back to work seeking peer review. . .

I was rather interested in your list of things about which philosophers can disagree:

* what counts as an important topic,* what is a good method to address a particular topic,* the truth of almost any philosophical conclusion,* the quality of almost any philosophical argument.

What strikes me about it is that, with the exception of the third and partly the fourth, these are matters of taste (and even our opinions about the third and the more objective aspects of the fourth are affected by our personal tastes). That would make sense of the phenomenon: we all recognize a distinction of good and bad taste (in methods, arguments, topics); we all take our taste to be good; we can all find evidence that our taste is good; and since we tend to measure other tastes by our own, we always score very well -- but then, so does everyone else.

I actually think one can argue that there's truth to the underappreciated and undervalued thing; the academic system we have now is set up so that most people will be undervalued and underappreciated. I don't know what the figures are for philosophy, but for the sciences I've seen figures that (for instance) 75% of all the papers published are cited no more than once. This is not because there was any less effort put into them; a hefty amount of work was put into those papers, and most of them will be largely ignored, cited in passing once or twice without being closely examined. That's possibly a factor, too: people know how much work they put into what they do to reach the point of barely being considered at all.

Anon 8:00: Yep, that sentence puts a much finer point on it than really could be sustained. Yet I wouldn't give up on the idea that there are differences in philosophical quality, so that (e.g.) David Lewis is in some real sense a better philosopher than almost all of the folks who publish a few articles for tenure.

Michael: "artless clarity" -- best praise I've heard in a long time. Thanks! But heeding my own advice, I'm taking that praise at a steep discount. More substantively: I guess I'm not as skeptical about the value of wanting to be good at philosophy, though I agree that there's something problematic in wanting *primarily* that and not also, and perhaps more importantly, the truth or at least well-informed skepticism that philosophizing (broadly construed to include Dennett, x-phi, etc.) is supposed to bring.

Brandon: Thanks for those comments. I agree with both your points. "Underappreciated" can indeed unproblematically be universally (or nearly universally) true. The universalization of "above average" is more problematic.

Swati and Anon 6:21: Yes and yes. And maybe I should make explicit that I think the dynamics for students are a bit different, with a substantial proportion suffering from underconfidence -- or this weirdly irrational blend (which I had as a student) of underconfidence in some respects and inflated arrogance in other respects.

Perhaps I am just skeptical about a static concept of what philosophy or doing philosophy is. For example, the creativity and interdisciplinary interface with the sciences now required - IMO - is not served well by the traditional idea of becoming a 'professional philosopher' nor by stereotypes that may have been accurate 50 years ago. Self critical inquiry (see above post!) that has the capacity to produce scientific discipline seems a good candidate, but then this leaves out, as just an example, the important political, moral, and pedagogical dimensions of Socrates and Plato. I have found it curious how 'philosophy' is used in trying to get a handle on what a 'public intellectual' is. Perhaps I would want to work truth seeking and skepticism into the idea of 'philosophy' itself, and then note the inconsistency between philosophy, and, again by way of example, religious apologetics, even though we continue to see the attempt to wed these two practices. (And as for the 'what about Augustine?' reply: St. Paul, most medievals, and Martin Luther wanted nothing of the heresy producing Aristotle found in the unique occasions of an Augustine or Abelard).

I'm unconvinced. Large groups of philosophers share, if not standards, then at least proxies for standards. For instance, among analytic philosophers (who can be identified by this very fact), there is near consensus on which journals are the top 5. Using this proxy, I suspect that many philosophers assign a rating to themselves that is a function of the number of papers that they have published in the top 5. I use the very best methods to investigate the very best topics, modeling myself on the very best philosophers. But I don't actually reach the standards of the very best philosophers: they publish more than I do in the places that count (for me).

Michael: An interesting question, how much the practice of "doing philosophy" remains static over time. On the one hand, it does seem like it evolves somewhat; but on the other hand, there are some common threads running back at least to Plato and (in ancient China) Mozi.

Neil: I suspect there's a lot of irrational instability and in-betweenishness in such matters (perhaps partly mood dependent). Also, simple deference to the top five journals as markers of quality is, I think, pretty uncommon - as for example in the following thought: How did that piece of [beep] get in J Phil when they rejected me?!

Eric, I have done my own informal surveys on journal quality, and the rankings are pretty stable across persons and time. Sure, the phenomenon of which you speak is genuine, and boosts our self-esteem. But at the margins: I believe that I have written more papers good enough for J Phil than I have actually succeeded in publishing there. But I don't believe that I have written dozens of that quality, whereas I know others have. I speak as someone with a rejection from 'Analysis' in my in-box. Further, journals are just one widely agreed upon measure of quality: think Leiter report.

That's why you're only "one order of magnitude" off (whatever that means), Neil. You'll concede, except perhaps in certain flashing foolish thoughts, that you're not Ned Block or David Chalmers (much less Hume or Plato). Or am I imputing too much of my own psychology to you?

The journals and department rankings allow me to calibrate my quality (or really, the quality of my output) pretty accurately. I can actually do it predictively: I may overestimate, but not by much. The one paper I sent to Phil Review was rejected but accepted by J. Phil; the paper I sent to Nous was accepted by PPR, and so on. I doubt that the difference between these journals - though real - is an order of magnitude. If I overestimate my quality, is not by much. Put another way, there is lots of space, with reference points, between me and Ned Block. You're not Ned Block; I'm not Eric Schwitzgebel.

I agree, Neil, that a hard look at objective measures is a good way, probably the best way, to get ourselves calibrated -- and perhaps you're pretty well calibrated. (Since I'm not sure which Neil you are, I make no claims about the Neil-Schwitzgebel comparison!)

On the other hand, it's legitimate to have standards that differ from the standards exemplified in the journals, and one can veridically notice that one meets those standards in a way others do not -- and so legitimately see oneself as better than others who publish at about the same rate in the same journals (as do also many of those others, who better meet *their* legitimate standards). Hence the seemingly paradoxical result in the post. My point is not *simply* the standard point about self-serving illusions.

Also, although there are relatively objective measures of prominence in the field based on existing work, it's harder to measure things like potential, quality as separable from recognition, staying power, and decline from peak performance. (On the last of these, I think there's very widespread illusion among the most prominent philosophers, who aren't helped by the fawning feedback of students and editors.)